POTENTIAL tenants in Limerick City are being urged to exercise extreme caution after reports of a sophisticated scam targeting those seeking rental accommodation.
Fianna Fáil TD Willie O’Dea highlighted a sophisticated scam targeting renters in Limerick last Friday (February 6) involving a property in the O’Callaghan Strand area of the city.
He explained that a property was advertised as a house share on property website Daft.ie for a number of days and people interested in renting the room were advised to email the landlord to organise a viewing.
Last Friday afternoon, he told this newspaper, one of his constituents received an email regarding the property asking them to follow a link that appeared to lead to the official website of Daft.ie.
The prospective tenant was enticed to select a date and time to view the property, Deputy O’Dea said, and was then asked to confirm their bank card details and place a €2 deposit, which would be forfeited in the event that they did not show up to the viewing. Revolut cards were not accepted.
“Upon entering their bank details, the hopeful tenant was presented with a loading icon on the screen and an instruction not to refresh or close the web page,” Deputy O’Dea explained.
“The alarm was first raised that a cyber crime had taken place when the renter noticed that their bank card was blocked. After contacting the customer service phone line of their bank, it became apparent that someone had attempted to access their bank account from another device.
“Fortunately in this instance, the cyber criminals were unsuccessful in stealing any money thanks to the robust security measures of the bank. However, the renter was faced with the inconvenience of having to have a new bank card issued to them,” Deputy O’Dea said.
A security notice email was issued by Daft.ie on Friday night warning that the property may have been compromised and the advert was removed from the website.
“This is a devious crime targeting a vulnerable group in society. It is unclear how many people may have been impacted by the scam in the time between when they received the fraudulent email and the removal of the advert,” Deputy O’Dea said.
“As a general rule of thumb, you should never have to confirm your bank details to view a property.  I cannot emphasise enough the need to be extremely careful with your bank details when online and to contact your bank immediately if you suspect that your bank account details may have been compromised.”